I attended the Socialist conference "Building a New Left for a New Era" organized by the International Socialist Organization [ISO] in San Francisco, California that was held at the Women's Building [3543 18th Street] and the ISO Office located at 110 Capp Street on July 3 and 4, 2009. I only attended 5 discussions and caught a portion of another.
I video recorded a number of the talks in order to preserve and re-distribute the content of each meeting. It will take a few days to get all the videos uploaded but I will put them up as I am able.
Today I started an account with zazzle.com It is the same thing as CafePress.com where they will make T-shirts and coffee mugs with your design on it and then you earn a commission on the sale.
Here are the designs I've put up so far. I've started with t-shirts of emoticons. Seems to me like there might me some small niche interest in such designs, despite their simplicity.
I attended my first same sex marriage recently. My friends Abigail and Kat got married on June 13. I really enjoyed their wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony and a great party with excellent vegetarian food from Ipanema.
I offered to film the ceremony since I have the camcorder and tripod I've been using to film Council meetings from my City Council blog . My first wedding video.
I fully support the rights of adults to marry whomever they choose. This is guaranteed by the "Equal Protection" established by the 14th Amendment. I also believe gay marriage is protected by the First Amendment's protection of religion. If any church recognizes and performs a same-sex marriage that should be afforded the same benefits and legal rights as a marriage between a man and a woman.
Something I have to deal with occasionally is harassing phone calls. In the last couple of weeks I've gotten two calls from a guy who calls himself Chicago Mike. He called on March 31, 2009 and this morning at 1 am, Listen to April 12 call.
He's mad at me because I resisted his bullshit anti-gay petition and exposed him and his partner as private contractors hired by the Republican Party of Virginia. Read the story here. I first met Chicago Mike in August 2005.
This guy periodically calls or emails me random usually racist screeds. I don't feel particularly threatened by him but it does make me think he is mentally unbalanced.
I have been keeping pretty busy in my free time the last few days editing videos and writing reports of various Council meetings. I like how Blogger lets you back date entries. It allows me to fill in the backlog of stories that I don't have time to write immediately but eventually I can get to them. The blog is available at richmond-telegraph.blogspot.com or www.RichmondTelegraph.org
